A former fraud prosecutor with the District Attorney’s Office pursued romantic relationships with as many as a half-dozen women after he prosecuted them, according to a legal claim against San Diego County. Experts said the case raises unusual questions about ethical and professional conduct.

Correction

The original version of this story incorrectly identified attorney Ernie Marugg as Ernie Marugg Jr. The spelling of Jon McAnally's first name also was misspelled. The story has been updated with the correct spellings.

The Union-Tribune regrets the errors.

The claim was filed Nov. 4 by Tamara McAnally, 41, of Vista, who had pleaded guilty along with her husband to felony fraud charges in 2004. She contends that Ernie Marugg used his position as a deputy district attorney to pursue relationships with female defendants for nearly a decade.

One of the women, Kim Alvarez, had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor fraud charge in 2003. She later began dating Marugg and married him in 2010. They each filed for divorce this year, and she said in her divorce declaration that Marugg told her he had long-term affairs with several defendants.

In an interview this month, Marugg denied he had inappropriate relationships with women he prosecuted.

McAnally’s claim names the county, District Attorney’s Office, Marugg and his supervisors. It is the first step in filing a lawsuit and comes after she persuaded a judge this year to wipe out her fraud conviction and grant her a finding that she was factually innocent.

She argued that Marugg’s romantic interest may have hindered his impartiality during the fraud case against her. Prosecutors have a duty under the law to act impartially.

Superior Court Judge David Danielsen concluded there were “substantial irregularities” in the case and said Marugg “obtained her conviction as the result of his failure to discharge ethical obligations.”

Because Marugg’s alleged relationships occurred after the cases he prosecuted were over, a former prosecutor with the State Bar said Marugg did not violate any rules of professional conduct governing lawyers.

But that does not mean such conduct is acceptable, said Jan Stiglitz, a professor at California Western School of Law.

“It just looks bad,” he said. “If you are a prosecutor, you just don’t want any member of the public to have a question whether there was any action on your part that was colored or motivated by your personal interest.”

PROSECUTOR RETIRED

Marugg, 70, retired last year from the District Attorney’s Office amid an internal investigation into his conduct with female defendants.

An August 2010 memo by an investigator with the office’s Special Operations Division said Marugg was facing discipline for misconduct and having “inappropriate relations” with former defendants. Marugg told The San Diego Union-Tribune he was cleared of those allegations.

“The hearing I went through showed I didn’t do anything about going after those women,” he said.

He said he retired because he had been assigned to work at the Vista courthouse and did not want to commute from his San Diego home.

He denied having any kind of a romantic interest in McAnally or pursuing her.

Donnie Cox, the lawyer who filed the claim for McAnally, said Marugg retired before a formal hearing could be held and accused the District Attorney’s Office of a cover-up. “They swept this under the rug,” Cox said.

He also said Marugg’s supervisors were aware of his misconduct but declined to do anything because they did not want to jeopardize the funding the office receives from insurance companies and the State Compensation Insurance Fund to pursue fraud cases.

The District Attorney’s Office confirmed that Marugg retired on Sept. 23, 2010. Spokeswoman Tanya Sierra said in a statement the office could not discuss any internal investigation that had occurred because it was a personnel matter.

She called McAnally’s allegations against the District Attorney’s Office “baseless,” and she said the office acted “promptly, appropriately and ethically.”

STATE BAR INVESTIGATED

McAnally and another former defendant — Joe Alvarez, a contractor and ex-husband of Kim Alvarez — filed complaints about Marugg with the State Bar of California, contending he had committed prosecutorial misconduct. In both cases the bar took no action against Marugg.

The state bar does not comment on complaints against lawyers.

“It’s hard for me to see how there is any kind of a conflict if these women pleaded guilty at a time when he wasn’t pursuing an affair with them, but then after they get together,” said David Carr, a former state bar prosecutor and ethics expert.

Laurie Levenson, a former prosecutor and now a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said nonetheless the allegations against Marugg raise larger ethical questions. “It makes you begin to wonder what’s on his mind when he’s prosecuting these cases,” she said.

McAnally said she and Marugg were never intimate, despite Marugg “constantly asking me for sex.”

She and her husband, John McAnally, a construction contractor, were indicted in 2003 for workers’ compensation insurance fraud. They were charged with incorrectly classifying workers on the payroll to lower their insurance premiums with the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

Tamara McAnally pleaded guilty to a felony conspiracy count but maintained her innocence. She said she pleaded guilty because her defense attorney told her if she didn’t then prosecutors would push for her to go to prison.

Jon McAnally also pleaded guilty to conspiracy. The couple was ordered to pay $412,096 in restitution to the state.

PROSECUTOR'S HELP SOUGHT

Tamara McAnally said that by 2005 she was trying to get a job as a mortgage broker to help pay the restitution claim but could not get licensed because of her felony conviction.

She said she asked Marugg to reduce the conviction to a misdemeanor, and he agreed. Reducing convictions is not unusual with certain felonies, including insurance fraud.

McAnally said after the felony was reduced, Marugg began to contact her in 2006.

“He was calling me continually, telling me he could not get me off his mind,” she said.

In her court petition to be declared innocent of fraud, McAnally included a 2009 email from Marugg that said: “I am sorry you are having so much trouble. It makes me feel guilty for filing charges against you. I wish I had a time machine and could straighten all this out.”

Then on Nov. 2, 2009, McAnally said, she got a phone call from Kim Alvarez.

Alvarez had just begun living with Marugg after having dated him for some time.

Last week, Marugg said the relationship with Kim Alvarez did not begin until after he had prosecuted her and her husband for workers’ compensation fraud, and after she had divorced her husband.

COMPLAINT MADE TO D.A.

McAnally said she was shocked to learn that Marugg was romantically involved with another former defendant. She complained about Marugg’s behavior to the District Attorney’s Office in August 2010, and then worked to clear her name.

She hired criminal defense lawyer Brad Patton, who argued in court papers that Marugg’s conduct created at the least the appearance of a conflict and raised questions about whether he was acting impartially on McAnally’s case.

“The problem is there appears to be a pattern of this kind of activity on his part,” Patton said.

He also argued that some evidence presented to the grand jury to get an indictment against McAnally was flawed, and that she had been poorly represented by her lawyer at the time.

When he filed the court papers for an innocence declaration, the District Attorney’s Office did not contest it. The county has six months to accept or reject McAnally’s claim. If it is rejected, Cox said he will file a federal civil-rights lawsuit.